Wednesday, January 27, 2016

A mysterious
worldwide epidemic reduces the birthrate of female infants from 50
percent to less than 1 percent. Medical science and governments around
the world scramble in an effort to solve the problem, but twenty-five
years later there is no cure, and an entire generation grows up with a
population of fewer than a thousand women.

Zoey and some of the
surviving young women are housed in a scientific research compound
dedicated to determining the cause. For two decades, she’s been isolated
from her family, treated as a test subject, and locked away—told only
that the virus has wiped out the rest of the world’s population.

Captivity
is the only life Zoey has ever known, and escaping her heavily armed
captors is no easy task, but she’s determined to leave before she is
subjected to the next round of tests…a program that no other woman has
ever returned from. Even if she’s successful, Zoey has no idea what
she’ll encounter in the strange new world beyond the facility’s walls.
Winning her freedom will take brutality she never imagined she
possessed, as well as all her strength and cunning—but Zoey is ready for
war.

REVIEW: How much is a life worth?

This question is the first that enters Zoey’s mind each
morning, and it is the last she thinks before falling off to sleep every night.
Can a price be put on such a thing? And if it could be, would one ever be able
to pay for it?

Opening with the oft repeated quote attributed to Henry
David Thoreau, “The savage in man is never quite eradicated,” this hard-boiled dystopian
thriller set in the near future with a dynamic cast of characters headed by a
female is quite fittingly dedicated by the author to his wife, mother, daughter
and sister, whom he labelled “the strongest women I know.” Though I’m not that familiar
with author Joe Hart, all I know is that he has an impeccable record as an
author with seven novels to his credit, most of them bestsellers. He has also
written a novella – Leave the Living, four short stories and a collection of
short stories entitled Midnight Paths: A Collection of Dark Horror.

The first book in the planned Dominion Trilogy, The Last
Girl by Joe Hart, reads like a doomsday prophecy with the world facing the
scourge of drought of women. In less than a quarter of a century, the world’s
women population has dwindled down to a thousand, and with no baby girls and
women, there seems to be no hope, and the world is ravaged by uncertainty. The
National Obstetric Alliance (NOA) was set up to determine the cause but it has
failed to come up with a satisfying answer. Known as “The Dearth,” the world
witnessed a noticeable drop in female births in 2016. It grew to an alarming
rate in 2017.By 2018, despite an
unprecedented scientific undertaking by NOA, it recorded less than one in one
hundred million. It resulted in chaos, uprisings and rebellions leading to a
full-scale civil war which lasted for five years.

Under the guise of protecting and sheltering the
surviving women, the NOA has been running a program, conducting experiments, at
a facility known as Advance Research Compound. The surviving women are holed up
- Terra, Zoey, Grace, Halie, Rita, Sherell, Penny, Lily, Meeka and many more
expectantly waiting for their turn to be “inducted” as they believe that the
program isn’t something to be afraid of but something to embrace as it is for
the greater good. They believe that they live for the chance to rebuild the
world, each waiting for their turn to be inducted into the program, after which
fulfilling their long-cherished dream of living in the safe zone with parents.
But Zoey knew better, and she decided to act before more of her friends are “inducted.”
Author Joe Hart cooked up a chillingly terrifying scenario, leaving me
breathless. Mesmerizing and unsettling, , The Last Girl by Joe Hart is a
thrill-a-page read which fans of science fiction, mystery, suspense and
futuristic novels will enjoy.

Saturday, January 23, 2016

As the dark specter of the Nazis settles over Germany,
two wealthy and educated brothers are suddenly thrust into the rising tide of
war. Karl, a former soldier and successful businessman, dutifully answers the
call to defend his country, while contemplative academic Gerhard is coerced
into informing for the Gestapo. Soon the brothers are serving in the SS, and as
Hitler’s hateful agenda brings about unspeakable atrocities, they find
themselves with innocent blood on their hands.

Following Germany’s eventual defeat, Karl and Gerhard are
haunted by their insurmountable guilt, and each seeks a way to escape from
wounds that will never heal. They survived the war and its revelation of
systematic horrors, but can they survive the unshakable knowledge of their own
culpability?

Review: Winter Men by Jesper Bugge Kold was originally
published in Danish in 2014 as Vintermænd, and is rendered into English by by K.E.
Semmel, who has done a tremendously fine work of it. This is an extremely
well-written novel, albeit a searing one, which will tug at the conscience of
readers as it takes a hard look at the moral quandaries facing the people of
Germany as the winds of change swept across the country during the World War II.
The novel is forthright and honest in its exploration of the subject while at
the same time draws the reader into the story through its magnificent and
stunning portrayal of the era and the people, alternating between scenes of
life in Hamburg and those in the war fronts and the concentration camps.

Author Jesper Bugge Kold’s thoughtful, grim and brooding
novel explores the lives of two brothers who were caught up in the vortex of
violence that swept the country as the Nazi propaganda was unleashed. The
brothers are Karl and Gerhard, who lives in Hamburg. Both of them are
well-educated, and quite affluent and respectable members of the society. Karl is
the director of a textile factory while Gerhard teaches mathematics at the
university. The brothers are not Nazi sympathizers yet the quirk turn of fate
so destined them that they were ultimately absorbed as members of the SS. While
others were not so lucky, Gerhard was handed the choice to either join the
Gestapo or be one among the teeming nameless people working for survival in one
of the concentration camps. As fate would have it, instead of being an inmate
Gerhard rose to become the commandant of a concentration camp.

Some may consider this well-researched work as an attempt
to exonerate many people who worked for the Nazi in the run-up to and during
the course of the Second World War. While this assumption may be a little
far-fetched, author Jesper Bugge Kold’s Winter Men is an examination of the
ethical and moral predicaments in which many Germans would have found
themselves during this period. Karl and Gerhard enrolled their services in the
SS not because they were ideologically drawn to it, but it was a pragmatic
decision based on the idea of surviving and thriving than not at all. But their
decision, whether good or bad, had its irreparable effect. They become tools,
with bloods on their hands. The end of the war was the beginning of
their travails, leading to a sad end for both. And what begs an answer is the
reasonable question: What would you have done if you were in their shoes?

About the Author: Born in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1972,
Winter Men is Jesper Bugge Kold's first novel. It was published in Denmark in
August 2014, and the same year it was nominated to the prestigious Debutant's
Prize at BogForum.

Jesper Bugge Kold grew up in Copenhagen and has a
bachelor's degree from the Library School and a master's degree from the
University of Information Technology. Later, working as a sports journalist on
several Danish TV-channels, he was editor on the national coverage of NFL. In
2009 he and his family moved to the countryside where he found time to start
writing.

Based on an enormous amount of research, Jesper Bugge
Kold has been in contact with former concentration camps, historians, and
museums during the writing of Winter Men.

Monday, January 18, 2016

I don’t remember the year but I still remember how much of an impact my
first brush with Jeffrey Archer’s brand of great fiction and
storytelling had on me. During those days I was safely ensconced in the
novels of Nick Carter, James Hadley Chase, Robert Ludlum and that great
western fiction author Louis L’Amour. When I came across Not a Penny
More, Not a Penny Less by Jeffrey Archer, I still remember, I was a bit
averse to a new author as I felt I would be sidetracked from the novels
of the authors with whom I was “acclimatized.” But there was no turning
back after reading the first few pages of Not a Penny More, Not a Penny
Less as Jeffrey Archer literally sucked me into his world of thrills and
chills.

Cometh the Hour by Jeffrey Archer is a continuation of
the Clifton Chronicles - the sixth and second last book in the series - a
saga that crisscrosses continents, and one in which the lives of Harry,
Emma, Giles, Sebastian, Lady Virginia and others are tried and tested
through friendship, betrayal, secrecy and maneuverings, and continues
with all the trademark twists and turns that have made the compelling
and spellbinding story of the Clifton and the Barrington families
Jeffrey Archer's most ambitious work to date. This extraordinary tale
begins in the backstreets of Bristol in 1919 when Harry Clifton was
raised by his mother and uncle who worked for Barrington Shipping. The
earlier titles in the series are: Only Time Will Tell (1919-1940), The
Sins of the Father (1939-1945), Best Kept Secret (1945-1957), Be Careful
What You Wish For (1957-1964) and Mightier than the Sword (1964-1970).
The series is imaginatively crafted and magnificently mounted on a
sweeping scale the grandeur and intensity of which few would parallel.

In
Cometh the Hour, Archer takes the story forward to the 1970s and the
stakes are high. Emma Clifton is facing the possibility of defeat in a
libel trial and humiliation of having to stand down as chairman of
Barrington’s. With her life hanging by a thread Emma opted not to take
advantage of a letter which surfaced that could win over the jury of
seven men and five women. Harry Clifton is busy with the draft of
Russian author Anatoly Babakov’s Uncle Joe, who is imprisoned in a gulag
in Siberia. Lady Virginia Fenwick continues to symbolize a character
that you love to hate but nonetheless an interesting character, without
whom the book would be a much poorer read. Jeffrey Archer surprised me
by planting Iron Lady Margaret Thatcher into the story, and of whom Emma
was deeply in awe. She plays a crucial part in one pivotal thread of
the story. Sebastian Clifton falls in love with Priya, a very
well-educated Indian woman who is working in London. Theirs is a sweet
love story, but a heartbreaking one. There are intriguing threads and
suspenseful plots but all merged beautifully in the end. Jeffrey
Archer’s The Clifton Chronicles is a delight to read for its array of
characters who epitomize what it takes to face the storms that come
along the way, as also those who personify evil. Cometh the Hour is one
of the best in the series. My gut feeling tells me that the seventh and
final volume slated for a November 2016 release will be a hefty one, and
a blockbuster of an ending to a series that has really excited me.

Friday, January 15, 2016

All Aubrey Ellis wants
is a normal life, one that doesn’t include desperate pleas from the
dead. Her remarkable gift may help others rest in peace, but it also
made for an unsettling childhood and destroyed her marriage. Finally
content as the real estate writer for a local newspaper, Aubrey keeps
her extraordinary ability hidden—until she is unexpectedly assigned the
story of a decades-old murder.

Rocked by the discovery of a young
woman’s skeletal remains, the New England town of Surrey wants answers.
Hard-nosed investigative reporter Levi St John is determined to get
them. Aubrey has no choice but to get involved, even at the terrifying
risk of stirring spirits connected to a dead woman’s demise and piquing
her new reporting partner’s suspicions.

As Aubrey and Levi delve
further into the mystery, secrets are revealed and passion ignites. It
seems that Aubrey’s ghost gifts are poised to deliver everything but a
normal life.

Review: Ghost Gifts by Laura Spinella is a romantic suspense
thriller that will fascinate and entertain lovers of suspense, thriller and
romance. No ordinary romance, and no ordinary suspense or thriller either, author
Laura cast her magical spell as the reader is taken on an exciting superbly
paced novel that is un-put-down-able. Entrancing, intense and riveting, Ghost
Gifts by Laura Spinella is a gratifyingly satiating read that will leave many
readers clamoring for more.

Masterfully crafted and skilfully-woven, with plot twists
that will keep readers on the edge, this romantic suspense which furiously
combines with the supernatural and the mysterious, took shape twenty years ago
in Holyoke, Massachusetts when Aubrey Ellis was a thirteen-year-old girl. The
story continues twenty years later in present-day Surrey, Massachusetts, with
Aubrey working as the writer and editor of Surrey City Press home portrait
feature. The uneventful and monotonous daily grind was broken one Friday when
ghoulish skeletal remains had spilled out from behind Dustin Byrd’s basement
wall. It was the skeletal remains of Missy Flannigan who vanished without a
trace, and for which army veteran Frank Delacort was ultimately convicted of
the crime sans body though he pleaded innocence.

With the case hogging media limelight, Surrey
City Press entrusted the task of unravelling the whole mystery to Levi St John,
a tough reporter with imposing skills but disturbingly dense in the area of
personal communication. Aubrey Ellis, whose worked was confined to real estate,
and with no experience of serious investigative journalism, was assigned to
work alongside Levi, who was as much reluctant to work with her as she was with
him. As the case considered solved with a conviction turned red hot almost
twenty years later, Aubrey unknowingly was assigned her worst nightmare – a
fast-pass, all-inclusive ticket to a murdered girl’s past – and her own ghost.
Author Laura Spinella spins a thrilling yarn that will take you effortlessly
through to the end.

Laura Spinella is an East Coast author, originally from
Long Island, New York. She pursued her undergraduate degree in journalism at the University of
Georgia. The southern locale provided the

inspiration for her first novel, ​ Beautiful Disaster​ ,
which garnered multiple awards, including a Romance Writers of America RITA
nomination. She’s also lived on Maryland’s Eastern Shore and in North Carolina
before relocating to Massachusetts. She and her family currently live in the
Boston area, where she is always writing her next book. ​ Ghost Gifts​is Laura’s third work of romantic fiction.
She also writes sensual romance under the pen name L. J. Wilson. Visit her website

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